Art Anderson

For the sake of nostalgia, AMT's now 57-yr old '40 Ford coupe cannot be beaten, but for sheer up-to-date accuracy and clean assembly, it's Revell's '40 Standard Coupe that gets it right. Art

I would bet that it was the same funeral home in Indiana. In thinking about it, I believe the guy was located in North Judson IN, but that encounter with that undertaker was about 1986 or so--and yes, those were simply bagged shots of the then-current JoHan Cadillac Hearse. Art

A real 1928 Dodge "Victoria"--that model on the fake box is nowhere near close (it's just a modified AMT '32 Ford Victoria (Dodge called their's a "Brouham"--- https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f1/Dodge_Victory_Six_Brougham_1928.jpg Art

Except for two problems: First, I never did keep the guy's business card--as I felt at the time that it was too far-fetched an idea; and Second: I don't recall the name of the Funeral Home, nor the town where it was located now. Art

When I owned my hobby shop here in Lafayette IN, back in the 1980's, a funeral director from a town in Northern Indiana stopped in, inquired as to whether I would have any interest in a bunch of JoHan Cadillac hearse kits. It turned out, he thought every one of his fellow undertakers would love to have one of the kits he had in his inventory--it seems that he bought (this would have been perhaps 1982 or so--a small run of 3,000 of that kit, polybagged, and had big ideas of having them built and painted as "promotional models"--and his motive in stopping into my store was to find someone who would paint and build them, so he could sell them. I've often wondered what ever became of that stash! Art

Both Norm Veber (Replicas & MIniatures of Maryland) and Ken Kitchen (Kitchen Table Resins) make the Falcon inline 6 cylinder engine in resin. Art

I believe you are confusing the Ford 1930-31 truck cabs with the 1928-29, which is what Revell tooled up--COMPLETELY different cabs.

Easy one, thanks! Art

Nope, the roof line is very correct! You may be thinking of the '32-'34 truck cab, which had a steel roof, that was much flatter. See the pic of a real one: https://i0.wp.com/www.curbsideclassic.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/1930FordTruck08.jpg Art

Tooling apparently is LONG GONE.

I bought this one from the estate of a deceased fellow model car enthusiast I'd known for a lot of years--1930 Model A Ford closed cab pickup, based on Revell's old 1930 Model A 2dr Sedan--with a pickup box from the Revell 1929 Model A pickup. This was produced under the All American Models brand of resin, in 1998--but it never did take off--only about 30 or so were sold. It' set up to use the Revell '30 Model A Tudor or Woody Station wagon kits. Now on my short list to build! Art

Some curb feelers had springs, others were just solid spring steel wire, plated. I've seen both types in the past.

Or, even those "ball-headed" straight pins that come with new clothes,such as dress shirts--those have their heads dipped in plastic, to make the very small ball ends, which are painted silver already/ Art

Used to see curb feelers on BOTH sides of cars back in the day.

The stainless side spears and window garnish trim would have been nearly as shiny as the chrome bumpers when the car was new, though. And, in some respects, the bumpers would not have been as slick-shiny as they might be after restoration. That was due to the deep stamping "draws".particulary at the ends of the bumpers, where the steel literally got stretched to the point of nearly tearing. At the factory, those raw steel bumpers got at least a cursory "buffing" before plating, both those stretchmarks still showed through, at least slightly. Art

Actually, when new, stainless steel trim appeared as highly polished,not dull nor "matte". On the other hand, by 1957 or s, and continuing for a few years afterward, "anodized aluminum found its way on to cars as brightwork trim--and true anodized aluminum, while a bright silver in color, is never as shiny as either chromium plating or polished stainless stee. The side spears on 1958-59 Chevrolets were anodized aluminum, as were the grilles, and headlight bezels (on all trim levels). Art

I'e actually seen several "Shark-Nose" Grahams--they are interesting, to say the least--Sadly, the stylist, Amos Northrup (no relation to the aircraft/aerospace company) died before the styling project was finished, and that resulted in some compromises to the rear of the car. Art

I've done this conversion in the past, actually for a resin aftermarket kit. Simply Google "1991 Ford F-350 Crew Cab" (I just did!), and there are all kinds of very clear photo's of that era Ford Crew Cab. Essentially, the shapes of the extension are those of the standard cab, of course with elongated sides (rear doors). What you will need to do, though, is find out the BBC )Bumper-To-Back-Of-Cab dimension as that is where you get the length that the rear cab extension needs to be. The back wall of the extended cab and crew cabs is essentially the same panel as on the standard 2-door pickup cab, so two of the kits will be needed, for to stretch, the other to get the added rear section--same with the chassis as well. Some research will also give you the layout of the driveshaft system, which would be at least a 2-piece shaft, with a center U-joint, frame crossmember and "pillow block" for the midship bearing. Art

As others have stated, no. Polyurethane resin, thus compromised, will harden up over time, but if your parts (body shell?) are warped (and almost assuredly they will be) they likely are beyond saving. I had, on several occasions, a customer or two who did pretty much what you did, with the same results, even with a warning clearly printed on the cover page of every catalog I sent out, and included with every order. I even bought back (as in replaced) a couple of such bodies, to show potential buyers what would happen with commercial paint strippers. Art

It's interesting that I used exactly that very same kit to do my '27 T Tudor Sedan--which I did over the winter and spring of 2001--and it has yet to see any tire/wheel deterioration whasoever. But that aside, regardless of what we wish could happen, a preventive measure that always works: Wrap a strip of Bare Metal Foil around he rim first, then stretch and mount the PVC tire over that.

Here's a link to Flex Seal's MSDS (Manufacturer's Safety Data Sheet). Note that its solvents are petroleum distillates--which generally are death to polystyrene plastic. http://www.mcoe.us/view/1668.pdf Art

IMC sold their model kit tooling to Testors about 1973 or thereabouts. Since then, the tooling has changed hands several times, some was even shipped to Japan, produced there for a time.

Along those lines: Very seldom has any model car kit sold even a million kits over time even. Even AMT, in their heyday of the middle 1960's, in 1964, was reported by The Wall Street Journal (article titled something like "The World's Automaker" in a front-page "general interest article which has been pretty much a tradtion at WSJ) to have produced apprioximately 15 Million model cars in 1964--but that figure was spread over approximately 30 subjects by then. MPC claimed to have produced a million of their 1978 Pontiac Firedbird T/A, the "Blackbird", and some have figured a number that high for their "General Lee".. However, I suspect that the most produced 1/25 scale model car kit of all time was likely the first-generation AMT 1957 Chevy Bel Air HT, which was continuously in AMT's line from early 1962 though 1986, being replaced by the much better '57 Chevy kit in 1997, a production run of some 35 years (which has to be some kind of record).

And, certainly in the original "heyday" of the IMC kits, LRW in particular, those kits tended to be dust-catchers on store shelves. Most are not really aware,that IMC's highly detailed model car kits came as the "brainchild" of Budd "The Kat" Anderson, (no relation, although I did know him for years), who'd been at AMT Corporation for a few years in the early 60's, had a short stint at MPC when that company was starting up, then moved to IMC (which was never really a company specializing in model kits--rather IMC was an industrial molder of plastic parts, for the automobile and appliance industries--model kits being somewhat of a sideline. My guess as to the total production of IMC's car kits over the years of the tooling's existence? In the very low 100,000's, and that in relatively small production runs Art

Speaking as a model builder (and one who built scale models of Indy cars for about 20 years (mid-1960's through the mid-1980's, and as one who worked fulltime in a very large hobby shop here in Lafayette for 7 years, then aided them as a buyer for plastic model kits until the original owners sold the store 7 yrs after I left--THEN owned and operated my own hobby shop here in Lafayette IN from 1984-92--I can tell you that model kits of Indy cars seldom sold here (just an hour northwest of IMS) outside of the months of April, May and June. I've heard (from hobby industry manufacturers and wholesalers back in those years that models of Indy cars seldom sold at al well outside of the Midwest--and then VERY seasonally. Of course those of us in the retail hobby business in a radius of say, 300-400 miles of IMS sold a lot of those kits, but my contacts in the wholesale hobby industry (then largely centered in Chicago, told me the "score" on that one, as they were shipping model kits all over the US from the Windy City back then. I think the biggest reason for this was (and likely would be today) that by the time a model kit of this year's current Indy winner could make it to market (the lead time for bringing a new model kit to market is, at minimum, nearly a year), the bulk of the market (which is the impulse buyer) will have moved on, and generally not that interested in what is "last year's car". My experiences tend to bear this out--from the very first "serious" 1/25 scale plastic model Indy car kits (Jim Clark's 1963 Lotus Ford and Parnelli Jones' 1963 Indy-winning Watson roadster, by the time those car kits could come to market (which was about April of 1964, the demand was already for model kits of entries for 1964--and so on it went, all the way through STP turbines, Rislone & Olsonite Eagles of 1967-68, through the McLaren M-16's and Gurney Eagle Model 6's of the early-mid-70's, even the fairly excellent Penske PC-6 kits which hit stores in 1979--even the later 1980's Indy car kits languished after their initial production runs As late as 1985-86, I could have (and did to some extent) order in, from old stock in warehouses, 1960's and 70's Indy car kits (such as had been made), at closeout prices (and did). Art